


The Oncoming Tempest

by Taattosbt



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Actors, Friendship, Gen, I am a Shakespeare geek, Memories, Tempest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-09 19:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1994646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taattosbt/pseuds/Taattosbt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theatre continues even in the worst of circumstances. Eleven young actors respond to Bane's storm with one of their own - a production of The Tempest. They did not expect him to attend a performance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act 1 Scene 1

**Author's Note:**

> The characters in this story belong to Christopher Nolan and no profit is made on their use herein.  
> Glen Hansrad and Markita Irglova “Falling Slowly” from the album Music from the Motion Picture Once released 2007.  
> All quotes from the Tempest are taken from Internet Shakespeare Editions, First Folio Facsimiles. The author has modernized the spelling, punctuation, and formatting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The characters in this story belong to Christopher Nolan and no profit is made on their use herein.   
> Song by Glen Hansraad and Markita Irglova “Falling Slowly” from the album Music from the Motion Picture Once released 2007.  
> All quotes from the Tempest are taken from Internet Shakespeare Editions, First Folio Facsimiles. The author has modernized the spelling, punctuation, and formatting.

He managed to slip in unnoticed.  
“Take this sinking boat.”  
On stage there was music. An actor strummed gently on a guitar. An actress sang beside him, softly but somehow filing the ruined bank-turned-theater. Odd. His informant said the play began at 2:00. Sedition could hardly be expected to keep time, he supposed.  
“And point it home.”  
He marveled at the ability of youth and beauty to lure the eye. It was a rare day indeed when the masked war lord of Gotham could stand invisible in a crowd. Even if he was lurking in the shadows and in the back.  
“We’ve still got time.”  
He had admit his eyes were drawn as well. The girl reminded him of someone.  
“Raise your hopeful voice. You have a choice. You’ve made it now.”  
Talia. She looked like a young Talia. Not exactly; her hair was too light brown; her face not quite right. It was her eyes, he decided. They looked like Talia’s just as she made the climb. Hope. Fear. Love. But one sees in ingénues what one wishes.  
“Falling slowly. Sing your melody.”  
The boy shook his gold bangs from his eyes. He slowly shifted his weight back, heading for the left mot curtain. Still singing, the girl followed suit with the right most.  
“I’ll sing along.”  
The song ended and the pair disappeared off stage. The crowd applauded, the sound echoing off the marble and multiplying ten-fold. He clapped as well, albeit a little later than the rest. This was a new experience for him. He was not accustomed to plays and had not expected to see one in his final five months of life. Then again he had not expected The Arts to be Gotham's last hold-out of resistance. There were worse ways to spend two hours.  
“Boatswain!”  
An actor ran through the center curtain like a bat out of Hell. More new experiences. He hadn’t been startled in some time.  
“Here master! What cheer?”  
They were swarming out now; men and women in rag-tag costumes, running around and yelling, pulling at ropes attached to pillars and chairs. They wove between the audience that surrounded them as they elicited help in “steering” their “ship.”  
“What care these roarers for the name of king?”  
He liked that line. It was getting difficult to keep them all straight. He clumped the sailors in one group in his mind. There were only three of them. The African American youth with the crown appear to be the aforementioned king. The blonde musician, his hands now empty of their instrument, was his son and a prince. There were three others who he labeled just that—“other nobility”—and a young woman dressed as an old man. Not Talia. A different one.  
“All lost, to prayers, to prayers, all lost!”  
Why did the sailors have all the best lines? And where was that magician his spy had gone on about? Perhaps he had the wrong play? How many plays could there be in Gotham? Not old Gotham. His Gotham.  
“Let’s all sink with the king!”  
“Let’s take leave of him.”  
The Other Nobility ran for the exits. The old-young man-woman was left alone in stillness and in quiet. It was jarring. Uncomfortable. To have pandemonium and then nothing. It was a relief when he—the warlord decided to accept the masculine gender the actress projected—finally spoke.  
“Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground: long heath, brown furs, anything. The wills above be done, but I would feign die a dry death.”

He staggered for a side exit, cane in hand, leaving true stillness behind him. The ropes were scattered across the stage. Whatever ship the actors created was most definitely wrecked. 

The moment only lasted a breath before the curtains stirred once again. The center curtain parted to reveal—. His heart skipped a beat. That couldn’t be right. What was he seeing?  
Bane stared at himself on stage.


	2. Act 1 Scene 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The characters in this story belong to Christopher Nolan and no profit is made on their use herein. 
> 
> All quotes from the Tempest are taken from Internet Shakespeare Editions, First Folio Facsimiles. The author has modernized the spelling, punctuation, and formatting.

Bane barely noticed when the one who looked like Talia hurried onstage.

“If by your art, my dearest father”

Ra’s was never dear.

His twin stood silent at the entrance. He could not tear his gaze from the other man. He blinked and cleared his head. That wasn’t him. The figure onstage wore no mask. How could he have missed that?

“Oh, I have suffered with those I saw suffer.”

That was Talia, all right. Even thought she’d never admit it.

He looked again at the Not-him. It was the coat he decided. And the vest. And the way the actor held himself. Straight backed yet relaxed, hands resting on his chest, eyes intense. The boy was smaller than the man he counterfeited, but his stance alone commanded the room. He finally spoke.

“Be collected. No more amazement. Tell your piteous heart there’s no harm done.”

The boy stared right at him. Bane’s breath caught in his throat once more as he realized two things. One, the line was to him. The boy’s unyielding eye contact made that much clear. Two, the boy was not a boy. Her hair was pulled back and the coat hid the swell of her breasts and hips, but the actor Bane had mistaken for himself was an actress. The timbre of her voice gave her away.

His understanding must have shown as she gave a small smile. He nodded. Her gaze turned to Talia.

“No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee.”

Bane decided he liked these characters. He would have done anything for Talia. Not that Not-him and Fake-Talia could have known that.

The play continued.

Or rather, Not-him’s speech continued. She talked and talked. The scene was a barrage of back-story that sent even his brilliant mind scrambling to keep up.

“Nor that I am more better than Prospero, master of a full poor cell, and thy no greater father.”

So, Not-him was named Prospero. And Prospero was Fake-Talia’s father. Damn. He had been hoping for another relationship. 

“Thou had’st and more, Miranda. But how is it that this lives in thy mind? If thou remember’st aught ere thou came here,” 

Miranda was His-Talia’s alias. What a coincidence. And a long memory. This Miranda character really was Talia.

“I should sin to think but nobly of my grandmother. Good wombs have born bad sons.”

Miranda pointed to a man seated in the front row on the left side of the audience. The spectators laughed and her victim pretended to scowl. 

“By accident most strange bountiful Fortune, now my dear lady, hath mine enemies brought to this shore.”

Prospero finished his speech. A ship full of the people who had banished Prospero just happened to be floating by? That seemed rather far-fetched. Then again, this was a world populated by magicians, young women dressed like old men, and Talia doppelgangers. He let it slide and took stock of the whole, absurd situation. 

Prospero was duke, but had been banished by his younger brother. His brother usurped the throne while Prospero was squirrelled away in a library studying to become a sorcerer. The evil brother had sworn fealty to the more powerful state of Naples to ensure his position. Prospero and Miranda had been set to sea with nothing but some provisions given by the kind, old lord Gonzalo.

Gonzalo. The Old-young-man-woman from before had been called Gonzalo. Good. Gonzalo was shorter than “Old-young-man-woman.”

All in all it was pretty fantastical. He was thankful. He’d had enough of eerie resemblances for one afternoon. None of these spells, coups, and storms had anything to do with him, the League, or Talia.

Except for the banishment. He knew the pain of that. From the way Prospero spoke he/she understood it as well. No. That couldn’t be true. She was probably some socialite-heiress with a death wish and a penchant for Shakespeare. She had nothing to do with him.

“Here cease more questions. Thou are inclined to sleep.”

And Miranda promptly fell asleep. He chuckled, remembering. What Ra’s wouldn’t have given for power like that. Talia was not so obedient as this Miranda.

“Approach, my Ariel. Come.”

Barsad skipped onstage.

There were only so many times a jaw could drop in a single day. Bane felt sure he was reaching his limit.

Barsad skipped? No. It was the costume again. But the young man did look something like his lieutenant. Unruly brown hair, clear blue eyes. Where did these actors come from?

“Now in the waste, the deck, in every cabin I flamed amazement. Sometime I’d divide and burn in many places.” 

Ariel was a spirit and a servant of Prospero, parallel to himself and the Serbian mercenary. They were doing this on purpose.

Despite the jabs, he was thoroughly enjoying the language. “The fire divides and burns in many places” was longer than “the fire rises,” but he liked it anyway. 

Unlike Prospero, Ariel did not move like his inspiration. His movements were quick and animalistic, a far cry from Bane’s ever collected friend. Ariel used his red neck scarf to illustrate the story of the burning ship, the wreck, and the safe return to shore of all involved. Another difference. Bane could not recall ever seeing Barsad without that damned bandana wrapped around his neck. Even when camouflage was called for. Barsad said it was lucky.

“The king’s son, Ferdinand, with hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair), was the first man that leaped. Cried, ‘hell is empty, and all the devils are here.’”

 

“Why that’s my spirit. But was not this nigh shore?”

“Close by, my master.” 

Ariel see-sawed his hand in a “kind of” motion on “close by.” The audience laughed again. Bane joined in. Now that was something Barsad would say.

“Let me remember thee what thou hast promised, which is not yet performed me.” 

“How now? Moody? What is’t thou can’st demand?”

“My liberty.”

“Does thou forget from what a torment I did free thee?”

That’s when things took a turn for the political. Prospero’s hand slipped into his pocket. Ariel cowered behind the legs of a watching couple; who, in turn, shrank into the row behind them.

Prospero was holding the detonator.

Not the real one—he was sure Talia still had that one—but a very convincing replica.

“Thou best know’st what torment I did find thee in. It was torment to lay upon the damned, which Sycorax could not again undo. It was mine art, when I arrived and heard thee, that made gape the pine and let thee out.”

That gave him pause. Bane had been ready to step from the shadows and end the travesty, but the grain of truth in those lines stopped him. He had found Gotham limping on like a wounded animal, clinging to a lie and life at once. Now the city and its dark savior were both in hell on Earth. In time he would release them. Just like Prospero.

“Go make thyself like a nymph of the sea. Be subject to no sight but thin and mine: invisible.”

Another laugh as Ariel pulled swimming goggles from his pocket and “made himself like a nymph of the sea,” before exiting.

“Awake, dear heart. Thou hast slept well. Awake.”

Prospero knelt and shook his daughter lightly. In the beat before she woke Prospero caught Bane’s eye again. The actress flashed him another tiny smile. Sheepish this time. As if in apology. He smiled back.

At least he tried. He’d heard of and seen smiles that reached the eyes. Barsad when he was joking and/or drinking. Talia in the brief time between The Pit and his banishment. He hopes that was what he was doing now. The mask made him miss the strangest things.

“This island’s mine, by Sycorax, my mother, which thou tak’st from me! When thou cam’st first thou strok’st me and made much of me.”

He had to sort things out again. Sycorax had come up in that bit with the detonator. She was the island’s former ruler. An enchantress. Like Prospero banished, and, like Prospero, a parent. Her son spoke. He wore rags and his skin was painted to resemble scales. He railed against the wizard for stealing his inheritance. The wheel always turns, he thought. Caliban, the son, could easily be ruling the island by the end of the play. Bane, after all, ruled the League of Shadows.

“I have used thee (filth as thou art) with humane care, and lodged thee in mine own cell, ‘til thou didst seek to violate the honor of my daughter.”

This was too close to home. It wasn’t like that. But it was. It had been innocent, one could almost say puppy love. He’d once tried to go a little further; Talia said no; he stopped. Ra’s threw him out, but that didn’t stop the feeling. With three months of life left, he doubted it would ever stop.

“Full fathom five thy father lies. Of his bones are coral made.”

Ariel/Barsad was on again, this time singing and picking at the ingénue’s guitar from earlier. And behind him stumbled the ingénue, making a good show of pretending the musical spirit was invisible. 

“My prime request, which I do last pronounce, is—Oh, you wonder—if you be maid or no?”

“No wonder, sir, but certainly a maid.”

The lover’s meeting got another laugh. The prince had accompanied his speech with explanatory gestures. Evidently he was under the impression that Miranda did not understand English. It was all very over the top. Except for “Oh, you wonder.” That he spoke to himself.

Oh, you wonder, Talia. He remembered the first day he’d held her. He didn’t have the same feelings as now. That would have made him no better than her mother’s murderers. He did remember thinking what a miracle he had in his arms. She was a spot of innocence and happiness. She was hope, true hope, in a place that needed all it could get.

“They are both in either’s powers. But this swift business I must uneasy make, lest too light winning make the prize light.”

Prospero conferred with a father in the front row. The man’s daughter huddled next to him, mare than a little concerned at the proximity of the mercenary-lookalike. Having confirmed his course of action, Prospero once again resorted to magic. He overpowered the prince, accused him of espionage, and enforced his service, all in the name of making an easy love more complicated.

Perhaps that was Ra’s’ intention in Bane’s banishment. To give him and Talia a proper story. No. His mind was running away with him again. He wondered if plays always had this effect, or if it was just him.

“Be of comfort. My father’s of a better nature, sir, than he appears by speech.”

Miranda furtively comforted her prince-turned-servant. What had they called him? Ferdinand. Bane considered his mentor’s character. Ra’s Al Ghul had often and successfully obscured his nature. Whether it was better or worse than the metaphorical masks the man donned, Bane was not sure. One could rarely be sure of anything with the League.

“Come. Follow. Speak not for him.”

The scene ended as Prospero shepherded the lovers off. The stage was empty again. Bane waited and wondered how it would all play out. Suspense was not his usual color, but for now—just for now—he didn’t mind.


	3. Act 2 Scene 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The characters in this story belong to Christopher Nolan and no profit is made on their use herein.  
> All quotes from the Tempest are taken from Internet Shakespeare Editions, First Folio Facsimiles. The author has modernized the spelling, punctuation, and formatting.

“Beseech you, sir, be merry. You have cause.”

The nobility tromped onstage. The King, his crown in his hands, walked to the right corner of the stage and sat, unseeing and unhearing. He gripped the circlet tightly and uncertainly as if it would melt away if he loosened his fingers. As if the plastic were truly gold.

Behind him the courtiers continued, Gonzalo in his attempt at cheer, the Other Nobility in their mocks. It wouldn’t work.

“Here is everything advantageous to life.”

“True. Save means to live.”

For the first time he wondered where they were meant to be. An island, yes, but where? How large? What did it look like? All they truly had was a bare stage in an abandoned bank. A few curtains. Some rope that had disappeared with the ship.

He filled in the scene with the desert of his home. Dry, hard, and unforgiving. That was the only advantage of The Pit: shade. Gonzalo was lying to ease his master’s pain. Lies never helped.

The previous scene, however, had been green. A wide field at the foot of a mountain. Trees scattered around the edges. Covered in wild grasses. Like the place he had been just before coming to the city. He supposed they’d changed the name after the coup.

“Is not my doublet as fresh, sir, as the first day I wore it? I mean in a sort—”

“That was well fished for.”  
“—when I wore it at your daughter’s marriage?”

They were pushing too hard.

“You cram these words into my ears against the stomach of my sense. Would I had never married my daughter there, for coming thence my son is lost, and (in my rate) she too.”

The King finally spoke, strong voice breaking, crushed under sorrow. Bane knew it was coming. Talia had sat just like that after her mother’s death. She never spoke, just stared at nothing. It was a blessing, in a way. She simply had to hide her head and everyone assumed she was another of the old, broken men lurking in the corners of their prison. 

She was stronger for it. In time.

“Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss that would not bless our Europe with your daughter.”

“So is the dearest of the loss!”

An Other Nobility and The King nearly came to blows, but a voice came between them.

“My lord Sebastian! The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness and time to speak it in.”

Gonzalo stood perfectly still upstage, far from The King and the noble called Sebastian. He did not need to move. His face was stony. His voice reverberated through the hall.

That was the nature of truth, wasn’t it? Never gentle enough, never at the right time. If he hadn’t held up Dent’s picture and spoken those words, someone else would have. Perhaps Gordon himself. He favored the shadows, but everything came to light eventually.

Still, he shifted uneasily. The words were as much for him as for the men onstage.

“In the commonwealth I would, by contraries, execute all things—for now kind of traffic would I admit. No name of magistrate. Letters should not be known. Riches, poverty, and use of service none.”

Gonzalo was quickly becoming a thorn in his side. Perhaps his words in the stadium hadn’t been entirely true, but they were necessary. Gotham had to tear itself apart to bring balance to the world.

He winced again. Gordon would say the same thing. Necessary.

“What? All so soon asleep? I wish mine eyes would (with themselves) shut up my thoughts. I find they are inclined to do so.”

During his reverie, Ariel had crept back onstage. At the spirit’s supernatural urging Gonzalo had ceased his stream of poignant words in favor of snoring, followed by The King. It was ridiculous.

“It is a quality of the climate.”

Several audience members giggle at the unnamed nobility’s quiet sarcasm. At least someone else had noticed the absurdity of the moment.

Absurdity of the moment. He was watching a play that had made brazen fun of himself and his colleagues, but the “absurdity of the moment” was an excess of sleeping spells. Plays.

“Say this were death that now hath seized them. Why, they were no worse than now they are. There be that can rule Naples as well as he that sleeps.”

His gaze hardened on the conspiring pair. Betrayal would always meet with punishment. Bruce Wayne was languishing in a cell for that very offense. 

“I remember you did supplant your brother Prospero.”

“True. And look how well my garments sit upon me.” 

So, the Nameless Noble was the Evil Brother from the first scene. Prospero called him Antonio. And now he planned to repeat his sins. How very like Bruce, constant in his flaws.

Wayne was not the only one who came to mind. He thought of Dr. Pavel’s abortive for and with the CIA, despite his earlier promises to The League. He thought of Ra’s, who had thrown him from the closest thing to a home he was ever likely to have.

“But for your conscience—“

“Ay, sir. Where lies that?” 

And not two months ago Bane himself had killed his supposed employer, John Daggett. That could be seen as betrayal. In the right light.

Phillip Stryver had been executed that morning. Exiled, he corrected himself. Stryver had stood outside and ignored Daggett’s cries. Bane was not nearly as quick as he’d been with Pavel. 

Everyone would eventually face justice. Even he.

The memory of Daggett’s death came back to him, like a mirror reflecting Antonio’s line. What had he said? “You’re evil.” “I am necessary evil.” Is that what he would say? When—if—his time came? “It was necessary.”

“While you here do snoring lie  
Open-eyed conspiracy  
His time doth take…”

The rhyme was tenuous. Ariel, ever the deus ex machine, leapt on stage just in time to wake the sleepers. Despite Antonio and Sebastian’s raised swords, the fire spirit had taken the time to glance at the audience before singing “conspiracy” and “conspiry-sigh.”

“While we stood here securing your repose, (even now) we heard a hollow burst of bellowing, like bulls—“

Ariel snuck behind Sebastian as he stuttered out a cover story. As the human forced out the word “bull,” the spirit made claws of his hands and silently roared in Sebastian’s ear.

“—or rather lions. Did it not wake you?”

“I heard nothing.”

Barsad was always there just when you needed him.

“Sure it was the roar of a whole heard of… lions.”

Antonio’s sardonic support barely convinced Gonzalo. 

Sometimes the soldier id not always arrive with the expected, but it was always what was needed. Or at least it would work.

“Prospero, my lord, shall know what I have done. So (King) go safely on to seek thy son.”

Dancing, Ariel led the unseeing nobles off.

Ferdinand was still alive. He’d almost forgotten that. Trust Barsad to say the one thing to restore hope. Shockingly, the man was an optimist.


	4. Act 2 Scene 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The characters in this story belong to Christopher Nolan and no profit is made on their use herein.   
> All quotes from the Tempest are taken from Internet Shakespeare Editions, First Folio Facsimiles. The author has modernized the spelling, punctuation, and formatting.

“All the infections that the sun sucks up from bogs, fens, flats on Prosper fall.”

Caliban, the dispossessed fish-monster, hauled a log on behind him. He cursed Prospero for some time, detailing his master’s punishments for laziness or failure. The world was full of bad bosses, he though. He had experience both working for and being one. 

“And another storm brewing. I hear it singing in the wind.”

Yet another cross-dressed actress stumbled onstage. He recognized her as one of the sailors from the first scene. She’s since changed characters and traded her sou’wester for a jester’s hat. She’d also smeared makeup across her lips and donned a purple long coat. The Joker. Gotham had quite the cast to draw from.   
“If it should thunder as it did before I know not where to hide my head.”

The answer was obvious. In Arkham, every madman’s safe haven. The cardboard hospital was viewed by the criminal community more as an inn than a prison. And, as Dr. Crane was so fond of pointing out, the place had a revolving door. Doctor, patient, doctor, patient, who could tell? Jonathan wasn’t the only one who danced the line. The Joker met his wife there.

The mercenary analogue was any large city in the developing world. Hang out in a large enough city in a country with large enough problems and work was sure to come your way. It was rather like turning to the classifieds.

After his exile he’d ended up in Abidjan.

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

That was where he’d first met Barsad.

The imposter-joker slipped under Caliban’s blanket, much to the entertainment of the more worldly members of the audience. The monster and the jester sheltered from the rain in just the right position to be mistaken for doing something else entirely. 

“This is a very scurvy tune to sing at a man’s funeral. Well. Here’s my comfort.”

A third actor entered, singing off key and swigging from an improvised flask. This one had exchanged his sailor’s oilskin for a tattered tailcoat. Mercifully, he did not seem to be impersonating anyone. 

Like Bane, Barsad had been none too gently let go from his previous position. He’d washed up on the Ivory Coast, crawled into a bar, and spent what little he had. Drinking was not valued in mercenaries, hence Barsad’s unemployment. Despite his penniless predicament the man had not learned his lesson. But skilled snipers were hard to find, and work would eventually come his way.

Bane had negotiated a job with a rather angry Liberian blood diamond group. It seemed their smuggler in Cote D’Ivoire had been skimming more than the acceptable amount from their merchandise. They wanted him dead. After several months of banishment, Bane wanted a job.

Which is how he met his lieutenant. Working the opposite side of the hit.

“Do you put tricks upon us?”

Like his employers, the smuggler was aware that he lived in a city of currently un-hired guns-for-hire. So he went and hired a few. Barsad answered the call, picked himself off his barstool, and took what he thought was an easy gig.

“The spirit torments me! Oh!”  
Bane only half watched the bawdy comedy playing out on stage—how easily a bottle became something else when placed correctly. Bane’s mind was still in Abidjan. “The spirit torments me.” Yes, that was what it had felt like.

The smuggler’s protection had been easy enough to dispatch. All except one. Barsad, client in tow, had led Bane on a week-long wild goose chase through the city. As it turned out, Barsad was a sniper by trade, but a grafter at heart. He and his client posed as tourists, traffic cops, and missionaries. He faked hotel reservations, meetings, and plane, train, and ship tickets. Every time Bane got close Barsad and the smuggler would disappear. Their game of cat and mouse was the talk of Abidjan’s underbelly. Those with the right connections could even place bets on the masked man and the drunken trickster. 

The chase culminated in a glorified shell game of cargo ships. Bane figured out the true escape plan just in time to cut the smuggler off at Port Bouet Airport. Cornered, Barsad had made the single most important decision of his life. He’d shot the smuggler. The turned to Bane and asked if he could spare some of his earnings on a drink. 

“Hast thou not dropped from heaven?” 

“Out of the moon, I do assure thee. I was the man in the moon, when time was.”

As it happened, Bane did have money to spare. When their conversation had come around to history Bane had lied through his teeth—and mask. Barsad did not. The other man guessed the lie and Bane’s connection to the League of Shadows. Confidence tricksters had to read people, he supposed. Had Bane still been working for the League, he would have killed Barsad on the spot. Instead Bane decided to work with him. Which turned out to be one of the more important decisions of Bane’s own life.

Bane had insisted on one thing: stay sober or die. Barsad agreed, commenting that that was much simpler than any twelve step process.

A week later Bane found another job. One that required a sniper. Waste not, want not.

“A most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of a poor drunkard.”

Barsad had served him loyally ever since. People made strange idols of others.

“The King and all our company else being drowned, we will inherit here.”

Upon Ra’s death Barsad had been the first to hear Bane’s plan to rebuild The League. He was the first of the group. Well, him and Talia.

“Ban- Ban- Ca-Caliban! Has a new master! Get a new man! Freedom!”

The actors marched off stage, singing in celebration of Caliban’s perceived freedom and their plans for the island. No sooner had they left than a hand-bell rang frantically backstage. Several actors returned holding guitars and a violin. Another musical interlude. 

Bane beat a hasty retreat out of the building and down the street. He ducked into the nearest alley and behind a dumpster. He ought to break up the performance now. He ought to throw the actors on the ice and be done with it. But he couldn’t.

He wanted to see how it ended.


	5. Act 3 Scene 1

The music faded on the air as he crept back in. He settled against a pillar and watched he actors file behind the curtains. He counted eleven of them. Must have been a group number. 

Ferdinand reappeared, a log hefted over one, bare shoulder. The boy took center stage and set down his load.

“There be some sports are painful.”

Bane averted his eyes. Judging from the giggles and lone cat-call the majority of the audience enjoyed Ferdinand’s half-naked display. He did not.

Human indignity and suffering were common sights in his line of work. No matter how many times he saw it—no matter how thick a skin he grew—it always struck a chord. Slavery most of all. Starving, exposed people worked to death by masters or governments. Some deserved it. Many did not. 

To see such sorrow mocked onstage felt wrong.

“Oh, she is ten times more gentle than her father’s crabbed.”

Miranda entered. He looked up.

“Alas, now pray you, work not so hard. I would the lightening had burnt up those logs you are enjoined to pile. Pray, set it down and rest you. When this burns ‘twill weep for having wearied you.”

Ferdinand lifted the log once again, conveniently flexing his not unimpressive abdomen. The crowd was delight. If Miranda felt the same, she did not show it. She continued imploring. He continued protesting and preening.

Miranda kept bringing up memories. Maybe he wanted to see them—a kind of manufactured flash before his eyes.

About a year after their rescue a job had gone wrong. Ra’s was away when the poor operative stumbled in. It was cliché, but The League did not appreciate failure.

“If you’ll sit down, I’ll bear your logs awhile. Pray, give me that. I’ll carry it to the pile.”

“No! Precious creature. I had rather crack my sinews, break my back, than you should such dishonor undergo while I sit lazy by.”

Which is why Talia decided to finish the job. She climbed out her window and shimmied down a pillar. She proceeded down the mountain and hopped a not-strictly-legal fight at the very-not-legal airport three villages away. No one was quite sure how she had crossed international borders without identification, or how she had penetrated the headquarters of a multi-billion dollar company. Everyone was certain it was her knife in the CEO’s back. She was not yet fourteen.

“It would become me as well as it does you.”

Talia reappeared three days later, hiking up the mountain with her father. She had greeted the happy but perplexed Ra’s in the village. On the way up she made sure to mention that everything had run smoothly in his absence. The truth came out eventually, but at the time no one corrected her story.

When Bane asked her ‘why?’ She said ‘Because it kept another person from suffering.’

“Poor worm. Thou are infected. This visitation shows it.”

The wizard hid in the audience to one side of the stage. Bane had not noticed the actress enter. That was mildly impressive. 

“I do not know one of my sex. No woman’s face remember, save from my glass mine own…”

Talia again. When they first arrived at the temple Talia had followed what few women there were around the place for days. As far as she knew there were only two women in the world, her mother and her self. Many years later she told Bane that she had thought one of the female assassins was her mother in disguise. She believed if she followed them long enough one would take off her mask, smile, and hug her.

“I would not wish any companion in the world but you.”

Too many memories. Now was not the time to ask ‘what if?’ What if Ra’s had never died? What if Talia did not seek revenge? What if Bane was never forced to leave?

“The very instant that I saw you did my heart fly to thy service; there resides to make me slave to it. And for your sake am I this patient log-man.”

Bane could not have phrased it better himself.

“To be your fellow you may deny me, but I’ll be your servant whether you will or no.”

As the lovers whispered their oaths and sweet nothings, he once again wondered at the effect of plays. He knew it was another decadence of Gotham—another example of the engrained corruption. Despite himself, he was enjoying it. 

“So glad of this as they I cannot be, who are surprised with all. But my rejoicing at nothing can be more. I’ll to my book, for yet ere supper time I must perform much business appertaining.”

Miranda and Ferdinand finished flirting and ran off, but not before fitting in a good night kiss. Prospero watched them go with a broad smile that vanished as he took center stage. The detonator once again rested in his hand. Prospero turned it about in his palm as he spoke. 

Prospero pocketed the trigger and exited. Bane let out a breath he had not realized he held. Why had he done that? Simple: he was waiting for something.

It was the first time the actress had not looked at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The characters in this story belong to Christopher Nolan and no profit is made on their use herein.   
> All quotes from the Tempest are taken from Internet Shakespeare Editions, First Folio Facsimiles. The author has modernized the spelling, punctuation, and formatting.


	6. Act 3 Scene 2

“Tell not me. When the but is out we will drink water.”

The drunken trio were back. The Butler—Stephano, he recalled,--waved off Caliban’s explanations of where to find water. 

“They say there are but three upon this Isle; we are three of them. If the other two be brained like us: The state totters.”

Bane knew the Jester referred to the perspective coup, but he could not help but think that is the Island were “brained” like those three it would have the biggest hangover known to man.

“As I told you before: I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the Island.”

Caliban may have believed himself the rightful owner of the Island, but in Bane’s experience things were rarely clean cut. How had Sycorax come to power? Who was there before her? Had she traded beads for the land of a future city of millions? Or had she found that rarest of rarities: a truly uninhabited place? The intricacies of succession always left someone unsatisfied. Someone looking for revenge.

The League was in shambles after Ra’s’ death. Ra’s had planned for Wayne to succeed him  
Right up until Bruce burned down the temple. Some said right up until Ra’s’ death. In Bane’s opinion, Talia was the clear choice. But she had not spoken to nor seen her father for many years at that point. And, if they were considering outcasts and traitors, why not add Bane himself to the short list? After a year of violent bickering, the majority voice had fallen on Talia. As was right.

Ariel appeared again—invisible as usual. 

“Thou liest.” The spirit mimicked Trinculo’s voice as he flung the wild accusation. Predictably, Caliban and Stephano turned on the innocent Jester whose cried of ‘not guilty’ fell on deaf ears.

“Thou liest, thou jesting monkey thou: I would my valiant master would destroy thee. I do not lie.”

“Trinculo, if thou trouble him in’s tale, by this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth.”

“Why, I said nothing.” Trinculo whined.

“I say by sorcery he got this Isle from me, he got it. If thy greatness will revenge it on him (for I know thou dare’st) but this thing dare not.

Caliban knelt before Stephano. The actor crouched most of the time, but his lowered head and outstretched arms were unmistakable. “Help me, and I will trade one master for another.” It did not always work out as one hoped.”

Bane heard of the infighting after the fact. After it was al over and Talia sought him out. He had been minding his own business, or rather fixating on his business and ignoring what little news of the League of Shadows came his way. Freelance work was a diversion that suited him well. Job after job garnered recognition, a reputation for excellence, and an impressive network of resources. Resources that prove useful in the current endeavor.

He did not know it at the time. Not until she showed up out of the blue. He remembered knowing it was Talia, even before he saw her face. It wasn’t a huge leap of logic. Very few people had a reason to be waiting in the particular corner of the cave he squatted in at that point of the past. As Barsad never tired of pointing out, it was easy enough to find a hotel, or house, or anything, really, in the cities the frequented. But he still preferred the shadows. Places where he would not be seen.

But there she was.

“Why, what did I? I did nothing.”

Ariel was at it again. The Fool backed into a corner, protesting his innocence all the while. The scene would have been funnier in the Gotham of old. Given the circumstances. Given the surroundings, it sang as an echo of Johnathan Crane’s court room,

Be he had heard it in many other places from many other people throughout his life. ‘Why me? I did nothing.’ No one ever did anything, it seemed. Blame it on chance or fate. Personally, he blamed it on inattention. People did not full realize where their actions were taking them until they were already there. How else had he gotten here?

“Why, as I told thee, ‘tis a custom with him in the afternoon to sleep: there thou may’est brain him.”

The plot returned.

“Remember first to possess his books; for without them he is but a sot, as I am.”

It was a good plan. Everyone was human. One just had to find the weakness. Even Bane. He silently counted his blessings that these actors were pointing to the wrong weaknesses. 

“—Nor hath not one spirit to command. They all do hate him as rootedly as I do.”

They follow him unquestioning. If he said die, they died. But Barsad still kept cash and a packed bag in the back of the closet, and a plane squirreled away in a disused hangar on the north end of Gotham. ‘In case you change your mind.’ He said. Bane wouldn’t. 

“And that most deeply to consider is the beauty of his daughter.”

This had to stop. This play had no right to bring up all… this.

“Be not afeard, the Isle, is full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.”

It did it again. Ariel plucked out a tune on his guitar. Caliban, Staphano, and Trinculo were frozen, ears pricked up to catch the music. And Bane found himself, once more, hanging on their words. 

“And then, in dreaming, the clouds methought the clouds would open an show riches ready to drop upon me; that when I waked I cried to dream again.”

Dreams. They were a wonderful source of hope. Things of shelter. In The Pit, Bane would dream that the distant ring of sunlight came crashing down upon him. As he would open his eyes to see the surface of the Earth—so distance—he would wake. Dreams were wonderful sources of hope, but hope was not a wonderful thing. Now he dreamed of other things.

As the actors spoke and listened and plotted he wondered: what kind of city would produce these people. They knew nothing of the things the spoke, and yet every word felt like truth. They felt right. Maybe he should have seen Gotham—really seen it—before all this began. 

“Lead, monster. We’ll follow.”

Of course they would. To the very end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The characters in this story belong to Christopher Nolan and no profit is made on their use herein.   
> All quotes from the Tempest are taken from Internet Shakespeare Editions, First Folio Facsimiles. The author has modernized the spelling, punctuation, and formatting.


	7. Act 3 Scene 3

ACT 3 SCENE 3

“By’r larkin, I can go no further, sir.”

The ragged train of nobility followed their king on stage. Gonzalo collapsed and dragged himself into a roughly upright position using his cane and an audience member’s knee.

“Sit down and rest.”

King Alonso gave a weak wave to call the halt. He had the look of a leader at a loss for what to do. Where to go. That was never a good sign.

“Even here I will put off my hope.”

Bane had an epiphany. That was it. Alonso soke of his son, but somehow the phrase clicked everything into place. The play, the actors, the whole absurd situation.

They had no hope. 

“I am right glad that he’s so out of hope.”

They knew they would never cross that bridge. Never leave Gotham again. They would die here. That made them brave.

And a little stupid. But the two went hand in hand.

“What harmony is this? My go friends, hark.”

“Marvelous sweet music.”

Two actors poked their heads out of the curtains. Their faces were covered, but Bane was fairly certain they were the same ones playing Miranda and Ferdinand. They floated more than walked as they spread a blanket and piled it high with cans and cardboard boxes of food. Empty, no doubt. There was so little in the city.

The sprites were dressed in layers of bright orange rags thrown over their original costumes. The words “Blackgate Penitentiary” were stamped in several places. Bane chuckled. Spirits of the isle indeed. And “Prospero’s” minions. The kids had guts, he’d give them that.

As the shades distracted the nobility, Prospero entered. The wizard rested his haunches on the downstage corner, elbows on knees and fingers lightly intertwined. The same position Bane was seated in. The mercenary quickly shifted and glared at his double. Prospero ignored him.

“Give us kind keepers, Heavens: what are these?”

Wonder spread across Gonzalo’s face. Bane understood completely. The memory of Ra’s descending from the disc of sunlight that passed for heavens was forever etched in his mind. It was how he defined the word “miracle.”

“If in Naples I should report this now, would they believe me?”

Probably not. Who would believe him? If he left and told everyone he knew that eleven hopeless people had created a play that dragged up dust covered memories and threw them in his face. A play abut revenge on an island. About lies, and love, and banishment, and a play that sounded true, who would believe him?

No one.

He’d have to be out of his mind.

“Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of our human generation…”

Careful. Kindness rarely came without a price. That was the memory that discolored the word “miracle.”

“Honest lord, thou hast said well: for some of you there present are worse than devils.”

Prospero shared his bitter joke with the man behind him. The actress placed a hand on her knee and turned her head just enough to look out the corner of her eye. Bane shifted uncomfortably again. The woman moved almost exactly like him. Was she stalking him? Was she crazy?

That was a stupid question. Of course she was crazy. 

“I will stand to, and feed, although my last, no matter, since I feel the best is past.”

They were all crazy. They were face to face with death and reveling in it. They were laughing at their own last meal, and skipping to the gallows. The whole spectacle was a long suicide note. Addressed to him. 

But, if it was the end, why not? Bane’s death was just as certain, and he was sitting watching a play.

“You three are men of sin, whom Destiny the never surfeited sea hath cause to belch up you, on this island.”

The Blackgate spirits whisked away the food as the center curtain opened. Ariel swept on. He to had a layer to his costume: a tattered judge’s robe. A hangman’s noose dangled from his neck. Bane laughed out loud, as did several of the audience. Truly, these actors knew no bounds. 

He liked the line, too. So appropriate to Gotham. The isle of sin they had all been cast upon. 

“I have made you mad.”

Ariel tossed dust into the faces of the cowering nobility. Most likely it was flour thrown with dramatic flair. It made convincing fear toxin. 

“And even with such like valor men hang and drown their proper selves.”

Bane’s brow furrowed. The play needled his conscience again. There were some—few and far between though they were—who entered the courtroom, stood before the bench, and when asked to choose stood silent and walked out. They strode behind the piled wreckage that served as a bench and onto the ice. Uncaring.

It was a different kind of hopelessness.

“But remember—for that’s my business to you—that you three from Milan did supplant good Prospero.”

Bane shook of his thoughts. He had to remember the mission. Remember what they did and why it was necessary. Gotham killed Ra’s, nearly destroyed the league. Chewed them up and spat them out. The city was filled with lies and corruption. It deserved everything that happened.

“The powers delaying, not forgetting,”

Nothing was forgotten. That was Selena Kyle’s complaint against the world. 

How true it was.

Revenge required a long memory. It was the natural force that drove the world onward in cycle after cycle. The rise, fall, and rise again tat was humanity’s pulse. It was low.

Bruce waited years before returning to Gotham ad punishing those that destroyed his family. The hero claimed he worked for justice, but the first man he targeted was Carmine Falcone. His parent’s murderer’s boss.

Talia waited years before enacting the business they were about now. She orchestrated everything to hurt Wayne the most. In payment for her father’s murder. It was a cycle. 

And Bane waited years in exile, before finally hearing the news of Ra’s’ death. And he smiled. 

“Have incensed the seas, the shores; yea, all the creatures against your peace.”

Bane’s eyes wandered to Prospero again and found him mouthing Ariel’s words in unison with his servant. The actress held his gaze. She did not smile this time. This time her face was fury and pain so intense that Bane was the first to look away.

It was a challenge. A challenge for him to do something. Threaten her, stop her, kill her, anything. A challenge he knew he could not meet. 

Sure he could hurt her. He could kill her. But nothing he did would matter. There was nothing to lose. Without hope, and thereby without fear, she did not care. 

“Pronounce me lingering perdition, worse than death can be at once.”

Then they had Prospero’s permission to die.

“Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls upon your heads, is nothing but heart’s sorrow, and clear life ensuing.”

All of it was for balance. It was for balance. Not revenge. Revenge was a side note. Who was he kidding? It was all about revenge.

No. 

Either way it did not matter. Talia had built in the ending. In three months’ time it would stop. The wheel would grind to a halt. Every single member of the league of shadows was in Gotham. Along with an unstable nuclear device. It would all end.

Talia loved her father, but not enough to ensure an eternal legacy.

“Bravely the figure of this harpy hast though performed, my Ariel.” 

Prospero rose in a fluid movement. He threaded his way through the paralyzed nobles and clapped his servant on the shoulder, dismissing him through the curtains. 

“My highest charms work, and these, mine enemies, are all knit up in their distractions. They now are in my power.”

The wizard swept his eyes over the stage and then the crowd before pausing once more on Bane. The fury was gone. It was replaced with sadness. An apology. Perhaps even pity. 

There was also a question. “Are you happy?” “Is this what you wanted?”

“And in these fits I leave them, while I visit young Ferdinand.”

Prospero turned to go. His steps faltered. The his back straightened and he strode out.

Bane remembered. When he left Bruce in his cell h had not thought about the suffering in store for his enemy. He had thought on Talia. He looked forward to seeing her face once again.

“I’th’ name of something holy, sir, why stand you in this strange stare?”

The King and his company stirred. Gonzalo was first to speak. He had not been showered in flour and, unlike his compatriots, was in full possession of his wits. The old lord looked first to his King.

“O, monstrous! Monstrous!”

Who grabbed him and forced him to the ground, ranting wind and thunder and Prospero.

Bane tensed. He prepared to rush to Gonzalo’s aid. He stopped himself. It was a fake. Those were actors and they were pretending.

Still, he did not fully relax until Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio had rushed off stage, screaming.

“All three of them are desperate. Their great guilt—like poison given to work a great time after—now ‘gins to bite the spirits.”

They deserved it. They were guilty and now they paid for their treachery. Justice and revenge. One and the same. 

“I do beseech you—that are of suppler joints—follow them swiftly, and hinder them what this ecstasy may now provoke them to.”

Gonzalo pleaded with a woman in the front row for help. She sat still for a moment, then extended her hand to the lord. Gonzalo was still sprawled where his King had left him. He took her proffered help gratefully and labored to stand. When he was finally upright he started for the exit, woman still in tow. She pulled back and he dropped her hand, dismayed.

The he turned and hurried to care for the villains. 

Of all the play’s surprises this was the greatest. And the greatest falsehood. Such compassion—unwavering and unquestioning—was a fairytale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The characters in this story belong to Christopher Nolan and no profit is made on their use herein.   
> All quotes from the Tempest are taken from Internet Shakespeare Editions, First Folio Facsimiles. The author has modernized the spelling, punctuation, and formatting.


	8. Act 4 Scene 1

“If I have too austerely punished you, your compensation makes amends”

Ferdinand took the stage first. Bane gave silent thanks that the boy had recovered his shirt. Miranda and Prospero followed hand in hand.

“I have given you here a third of mine own life, or that for which I live.”

Prospero extended his hand to the newly freed prince.

Bane liked that line as well, though it puzzled him. It was true that people lived for other people. Humans constructed their existence around family or friends or loved ones. But it came false coming from Prospero.

The old man lived his daughter, Bane was sure of that. But his actions were rooted in personal vengeance. That was the most unbelievable part of the character. Ignoring, of course, that he was a wizard on a somehow-undiscovered island in the Mediterranean. 

Vengeance was not entirely personal. It stemmed from relationships; care and concerns for others. Harvey Dent, for example, snapped after Rachel Dawes died. Talia began her crusade after her father died. The list went on and on but he could not think of a solely personal revenge.

“Then as my guest, and thine own acquisition worthily purchased. Mine own daughter, but…” 

Prospero joined the lovers’ hands. Clasped them between his own. Miranda and Ferdinand tugged lightly at his grasp, but Prospero did not let go. Instead he took a breath and spoke again.

“I thou dost break her virgin knot before sanctimonious ceremonies may with full and right be ministered, no sweet aspersion will the Heavens let fall to make this contract grow; but barren hate; sour eyed disdain; and discord shall bestrew the union of your bed.”

Prospero released them. Ferdinand’s eyes were wide and Miranda sported the deepest blush Bane had ever seen. He went slightly pink himself.

“The strongest suggestion our worser Genius can, shall never melt mine honor into lust”

It was as good as response as any he supposed. Personally he would have gone with “That’s none of your business, Old Man.” 

“Fairly spoken. Sit then and talk with her.”

Prosper hit “talk” far harder than was strictly necessary. But, Miranda and Ferdinand complied. They settled, comfortably downstage, leaving very sight room for the Holy Spirit.

“What would my potent master? Here I am.”

“Thou and thy meaner fellows, thy last service did worthily perform: and I must use thee in such another trick.”

Bane would not describe the last service as “Worthy.” “Outrageous,” “Scandalous,” and “Shameless” were closer to the mark.  
And now they were in for a repeat performance. He wondered who would come on next. Surely the actors were running out of public figures.

“Be more abstemious, or else good night your vow.”

“I warrant you, sir, the white cold virgin snow upon my heart abates the ardor of my liver.” 

Bane wished Prospero would drop the subject. Ferdinand’s eloquent parries were almost worth it. He liked the image of a snow covered heart. Though, Bane wasn’t sure what livers had to do with anything.

The curtains stirred. Ariel entered and whispered to Prospero. Bane silently ticked off the list of possible “spirits.” The GCPD, Commissioner Gordan, Harvey Dent…

“No tongue: All eyes: Be silent.”

Bane braced himself.

“Ceres, most bounteous lady,”

Bane blinked. He didn’t get it.

“The Queen of Sky, whose watery arch and messenger am I, bids thee leave these, and with her soveraign grace bids these; and with her sovereign grace, Here on this grass-plot, in this very place to come, and sport: here Peacocks fly amain. Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.”

Stephano—or the actor playing him—wore a wig and an obviously-stuffed—floor—length evening gown. He (Stephano/actor) was supposed to be Iris. Bane did a quick mental tally. There were two actresses backstage—Gonzalo and Trinculo. Why weren’t either of them playing Iris?

“Hail, many colored messenger, That ne’er dost disobey the Wife of Jupiter.”

Alonso had traded the original costume for a woman’s formal wear. His was covered in fake flowers.  
What were these actresses going for? Was there a reference he was missing? What did it all mean?

“What hath thy Queen summoned me hither to this short grassed green?

“A contract of true love to celebrate.”

True love? After one day? Bane doubted it.

Then again, Miranda was smiling and Ferdinand watched her more than the bizarre parade of deities. Perhaps it was just the acting, but for a second Bane could believe it. 

“Great Juno come. I know her by her gait.”

“How does my bounteous sister? Go with me to bless this twain, that they may prosperous be, and honored in their issue,”

Caliban entered through the center in a flurry of curtains. He sported a platinum wig with a tiara nestled in its curls. The trio began a song showering blessings upon the happy couple.

It was nonsense. And funny. And defiant.

Bane had seen remnants of temples to these Goddesses—Iris and Ceres and Juno. Before his eyes these boys in cast-off finery counterfeited three long dead idols. And they did it with joy.

Bane glanced at the audience and saw smiles. More than he’s seen in a long time. Their faded grandeur was enough. In that moment the actors may as well have been goddesses.

“May I be bold to think these spirits?”

“Spirits which by mine art I have called from their confines to enact my present fancies.”

“Let me live here ever. So rare a wondred father and a wise makes this place paradise.”

It was a paradise. Compared to the rest of the life—the life he’d given them—this was miraculous. Then something happened. Ferdinand almost turned; almost looked at Bane. But, instead, he looked back at Prospero. They held each other’s gaze for a split second. Apprehension flickered across Ferdinand’s face as he searched Prospero’s. Whatever he was looking for—strength, reassurance, something else—Ferdinand must have found it and in the blink of an eye he was back to cuddling to Miranda.  
That wasn’t part of the play. That was the actors underneath. He could feel it. Bane looked to Ferdinand again. His grey-blue eyes, his gentle face which held the tiniest bit of steel. The boy look familiar. But Bane could not remember.

What had the prince said? “So rare a wondered father and a wise, makes this place paradise…” 

“Sweet now: Silence. Juno and Ceres whisper seriously!”

Prospero made a Dad-Joke, but who cared? Bane decided he would let the actors finish the show and round them up after. He’d figure it out then.  
Yet, Prospero’s God-awful pun pulled Bane’s attention back to the scene. The Wizard—or the Actress, or Both—was a fount of distraction. This time the weapon was puns. The Lovers shared a groan with the audience as he said “Juno and Ceres whisper Cere-iously.”

“Come temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate a contract of true love. Be not too late.”

And then they were all on stage. Gonzalo and Trinculo as nymphs. Antonio and Sebastian as farmers of a sort. Miranda and Ferdinand danced front and center. Ariel strummed a frenzied tune on his guitar. Prospero and Juno/Caliban tangoed in a corner. Iris/Stephano and Ceres/Alonso pulled audience members from their seats to join the delirium. The whole crowd danced, and swayed, and clapped, and sang, and smiled. It was bigger than the beginning of the Tempest. There were more colors; more sounds; and more life.  
This wasn’t about commenting or criticizing or sending a message. All that would have been preaching to the choir. No. This was the end. And everyone was already on board.  
They were going out with a bang.

And then it stopped.

“I had forgot the foul conspiracy of the beast Caliban and his confederates.”

The actors froze. Several flustered audience members shuffled back to their seats. Meanwhile. Prospero came to the fore.  
He waved the trigger like a wand. The actors unfroze, gathered themselves, and left. All except Miranda and Ferdinand. Who simply stood. And stared. 

They did not understand, but Bane did. Prospero had work to do. Plans and promises.  
In the silence he remembered that all those people—those smiling happy people—would kill him if they could.

“Never until this day saw I him touched with anger, so distempered.”

Or had she never seen it so up close? Bane had seen Ra’s’ anger, but never thought to see it turned on himself. He had never so much as frowned on Talia, and yet the day she reappeared he raged to rival the furies. Bane had moved on. Built anew. But he had not moved on enough, and in the end she won.

“You do look, my son, in a moved sort. As if you were dismayed. Be cheerful, sir—”

Prospero remembered where he was and who was with him. He pocketed the detonator and straightened his coat. He turn to Ferdinand, then faltered and struggled for the right words. For the right apology. The right explanation.

“—Our revels now are ended. These our actors (as I foretold you) were but spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air.”

Prospero was only half speaking of the gods and nymphs and spirits. No one looked at him, or smiled or winked, but Bane could tell the other half of the line was from the players to him. They were the spirits. And soon that would fade. 

“And like the baseless fabric of this vision—the cloud capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself—yea, all that which inherit shall dissolve. 

And like the baseless fabric of this vision, leave not a wrack behind.”  
Gotham’s shining skyscrapers, wide parks, and busy harbor would be wiped from the face of the Earth. It was what Bane wanted. What Talia wanted. 

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on. And our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

And yet, this apocalypse would have happened without them. Wait long enough and everything would fade. Today or tomorrow. Warm, in bed, at ninety, or on the ice at twenty. It didn’t matter. Not in the long run. Not any more.

“Sir, I am vexed. Bear with my weakness. My old brain is troubled.”

Prospero took a shaky breath and rubbed his forehead. For the first time the omnipotent wizard seemed truly lost. It made Bane uneasy. He wanted to help, but had no idea what to do.

Then Bane thought of what the rest of the audience was seeing. They saw an actress, in his likeness, lamenting the transience of existence and the dying splendor of their city. That actress had created a vision of Bane wracked with pity and regret. That wasn’t him. It wasn’t.

“Be not disturbed with my infirmity. If you be pleased, retire into my cell, and there repose a turn or two, I’ll walk to still me beating mind.”

Prospero forced a smile. He ushered his daughter and son-in-law to the curtains.  
Beating mind. Bane liked that. That was what the play was like. Every moment something new, a new memory, a musing, an objection. It was endless, wonderful, and terrifying all in one. Plays—or at least this play—were pure thought. 

It was dangerous. Not just for what it told the attentive crowd, but for what it did to Bane. It—he—questioned so much. There few hours would haunt him long after they ended.

“We wish you peace.”

Miranda and Ferdinand bowed to Prospero, but they meant Bane. Having shown that they no longer cared, that he couldn’t touch them or scare them, that they would enjoy what they had no matter what that was, they tipped their hats to say “nothing personal.” It wasn’t quite forgiveness. It was more “nice try.”

“Spirit, we must prepare to meet with Caliban.”

“Aye, my commander. When I presented Ceres I thought to have told thee of it, but I feared lest I might anger thee.”

So couldn’t they stop now? The message had been received. But the actors kept going dragging more and more unwanted thoughts into Bane’s head. Ariel. Barsad.  
Bane knew his followers feared him, even his lieutenant. Barsad never hesitated, never failed him. But now Barsad did not so much hesitate as disappear. He would wander the city for hours. And Barsad had proved so many times to Bane, if he did not want to be found he was not going to be. Bane knew the other man would never betray him—and even if he did, he couldn’t do much. But it was sad to see someone Bane had know for so long drifting away.

Prospero dismissed Ariel to the cave.

“A devil, a born devil, on whose nature nurture can never stick. On whom my pains, humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost.”

That sounded like Gotham. It was not a thing to mourn or pity. It was inherently flawed.  
Whatever Prospero’s plan, it involved fine clothing. Ariel reappeared loaded down with fur coats, silk robes, even a few tuxedo jackets. He hung them on the audience members along the left side, and waited for Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban to stumble on.

“—But to lose our bottles in the pool!”

“There is not only disgrace and dishonor in that, monster, but an infinite loss.” 

Barsad had started drinking again. The lingering scent of alcohol followed him on his walks.

“This is the mouth of the cell. No noise, and enter. Do good mischief which may make this island thine forever.”

It could be, Bane supposed. If he convinced Talia to change the plan. Find another way. Stay in Gotham and rule it. Happily ever after.  
And yet so many others had tried. They declared their reigns in blazing terms and were consumed by the fire. Johnathan Crane’s Scarecrow persona. The Joker. Even, in his own way, Commissioner Gordon and the Dent Act. It was never worth it.

“O King Stephano, O peer, O worthy Stephano, look what wardrobe here is for thee.”

“Let it alone, thou fool. It is but trash.”

Trinculo had finally noticed the garments lying on the shoulders of the audience. Ignoring Caliban’s warnings, the butler and the fool began trying on as many as they could.  
It was all trash; how true. The city and the play were alluring and enthralling trash. But trash nonetheless.

So why was he still watching it?

“Let them be hunted soundly.”

What happened next was ludicrous even for the circumstances. The actors backstage entered as a pack of dogs, on all fours, and chased Trinculo, Caliban, and Stephano off stage. They all wore dog’s ears. Apparently they were meant to be magical hounds that Prospero had conjured to torment his would-be attackers.  
As the barking and laughter died down, Prospero and Ariel were left alone once more.

“At this hour at my mercy lies all my enemies. Shortly shall all my labors end, and thou shalt have the air at freedom. For a little, follow, and do me service.”

That was the third time Prospero had said that. Bountiful fortune hath mine enemies brought to this shore. They are now in my power. After two days I will discharge thee.

Who was he trying to convince?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The characters in this story belong to Christopher Nolan and no profit is made on their use herein.  
> All quotes from the Tempest are taken from Internet Shakespeare Editions, First Folio Facsimiles. The author has modernized the spelling, punctuation, and formatting.


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